


The Boy I Used to Know

by ImNeitherNor



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angsty at first, Billy's POV, M/M, Robin is sort of terrible, Steve is amazingly patient, and then less angsty, billy recovers slowly, mild mutism, she's actually really great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImNeitherNor/pseuds/ImNeitherNor
Summary: Four times Steve tried to get Billy to talk and the one time it worked.





	The Boy I Used to Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettyboyporter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyboyporter/gifts).

> For @tracey7307 on Tumblr!

**i.**

  
_No one wants broken things._

_  
It’s broken. Throw it away._

  
The picture of his mother hadn’t, in fact, been broken, but the relationship after she ran from them had, tattered remnants of a would-be family. Billy remembers watching flames in the fireplace consume the picture of the three of them, blotting circles and curling the edges. He wonders if that’s what he looks like now--consumed and broken and useless. It’s certainly how he feels, bundled up in a two-sizes-too-large hoodie, all of his curls hidden behind the drawstring, hands dug into the front pocket as Max shouts across the way for Dustin to _ hurry the fuck up, Jesus_.

  
Two weeks out of the hospital and Billy still can’t manage to pull his eyes up from the ground. The names and lives of those he stole hover over his shoulder, whispering and accusing while he memorizes all the cracks and fractures in Hawkins' foundation. They’re thirsty, he thinks, for whatever guilt they can pry out of him. There’s enough to go around, bitter on his tongue and heavy in his gut. Owens insisted that things would get better, but he stressed that Billy would have to get out. He would have to _ socialize _ and try to have friends and escape his head, if only for a little while.

  
So, Billy is trying, even if that means he’s leaning against a bench while Max and her group of friends bolt for the arcade. He can feel her eyes on him as the door swings open. There’s an invitation there, but he doesn’t budge. It doesn’t matter if he can’t smoke anymore because of tissue damage or whatever bullshit the doctor spewed. It isn’t like he can play arcade games, either, with the way he aches from being thrown through several walls and t-boned and--well.

  
He just isn’t exactly like he had been, a month ago.

  
Billy is tracing a long crack in the concrete when boat shoes pop into his vision. He purses his lips and closes his eyes. 

  
“It’s a little hot for a hoodie,” Steve’s voice isn’t cautious, like everyone else’s. He sounds amused, even, as he flops down onto the bench, thighs parted wide and arms resting across the back. Billy stays standing, perfectly still except for the fidgeting he’s doing in his hoodie pocket, the slide of his ring moving back and forth his only solace while Steve watches the front of the arcade like the mother hen that he is.

  
Max bursts out a second later and Billy feels as if he can breathe again. Steve’s presence isn’t overwhelming, exactly, but his cologne burrows into the deepest part of Billy’s bones and his voice lights all of his synopses up in a way that he hasn’t since that thing hit his windshield. In a flurry of red hair and huffs, Max stomps over to them and staples her hands on her hips.

  
“I forgot quarters,” she says and her eyes dart between him and Steve.

  
Billy blinks at her, purposely slow, a question without words.

  
“Oh, _ c’mon_, Billy,” Max groans and holds her hand out, “I _ know _ you’ve got some. You always do! Hand ‘em over.”

  
The second Billy digs into his jean pocket and tugs them out, Steve bursts into laughter. He’s pressing them into her hand and watching her run back in when Steve tugs at the back of his hoodie. It’s enough of a pull to get Billy to sit down on the bench with a sharp, surprised exhale. People don’t touch him anymore, and the way they look at him? It reminds him of how careful he is to be invisible in his old man’s house. 

  
“Better watch out,” Steve muses, “she’s starting to sound just like you. Next thing y’know, she’ll be callin’ Lucas _ pretty boy._”

  
Billy doesn’t look at him, but he snorts and hides a smile behind the neckline of the hoodie.

**ii.**

  
Some nights are better than others. 

  
This is _ not _ one of those nights.

  
Billy stands in front of the warehouse where he watched people dissolve into meat piles and then morph into that _ thing _ that the kids called a Mind Flayer. He wonders if they realize how spot on they are--how that thing took his mind apart, peeling it back in layers until Billy couldn’t fight anymore, couldn’t put together the energy to breathe after he screamed himself hoarse. What bothers him the most is how normal it looks now. There isn’t a shadow. The walls don’t look like they’re breathing. The ground doesn’t feel soft and sticky and ready to swallow him up. It looks infuriatingly _ normal_. 

  
He wants to scream and can’t find his voice.

  
Instead, he sways on his feet and then eases down into a crouch. One one-thousand, two--three--four--.

  
The numbers keep going until they mean nothing.

  
Headlights stream around the corner, blot Billy’s vision, and he resists the urge to cover his eyes. The smoothness of the engine tells him it’s something expensive. The lights and engine don’t cut out, but the door swings open and Billy isn’t at all surprised to see Steve climb out of his BMW. Billy’s still crouching, steadying himself with a palm on the ground, as Steve walks toward him.

  
“Come here often?” Steve asks, and Billy wants to bite out _ cut the bullshit _ and _ fuck you, Harrington _ and _ please don’t leave me here_. “I get it. The going back to your old haunts, thing?”

_  
No you don’t _ is what Billy snarls in his head, but all he does is sink down onto his ass on the pavement. _ You’re wasting gas _ he wants to point out as Steve eases down next to him. _ You’re wasting your time_.

  
“After the first round with these fuckers,” Steve continues, like Billy had said anything at all, “I couldn’t sleep. I mean, I still can’t sleep? _ Anyway_. I had nightmares if I did. I started driving around Hawkins. I’d walk the woods. I’d carry that bat with me-” Billy scoffs. That _ bat_. “-and I’d wait for one of them to pop out and I’d either kill it or it’d kill me.” He pauses, like he’s giving space for Billy to speak. When he doesn’t, Steve bumps their shoulders together. It rattles something deep inside of Billy. “Barb? The first person they took? Died in my pool. Well, they took her… from my pool.”

  
Billy can feel the weight of Steve’s silence on him like that thing that held him down against the dirt covered warehouse floor. It’s stifling, but he can’t find his voice to fill the void. Instead, he leans against Steve’s side and rests his cheek on his shoulder. It doesn’t count, is what Billy is thinking, because the hoodie keeps his cheek from actually touching Steve and it’s hiding his expression as it crumbles.

  
Steve feels guilty. It’s in his voice and in the way his spine curves forward as they sit on the pavement and stare at the empty warehouse. Eventually, though, Billy can feel the weight of Steve’s cheek on top of his head.

  
“It isn’t your fault,” Steve murmurs as tears soak through his shirt because Billy is a _ bitch _ and can’t handle facing something like an empty fucking _ warehouse _ when Steve _ lives _ above his nightmare, “it feels like it is, but it isn’t. You’re an asshole, definitely, but like, not a _ monster_?”

  
Billy chokes on a mix between a sob and a laugh, and he doesn’t pull away when Steve tucks an arm around his waist.

  


**iii.**  
  
  
“Aren’t you _ hot_?” Dustin is probably the most annoying of all of them.

  
“I prefer _ this _ over his other look.”

  
Scratch that. _ Mike _ is the most annoying.

  
Billy sits fifteen feet or so away from the edge of the quarry, water lapping over smooth pebbles. There aren’t any waves like there are in Cali, but it doesn’t seem to bother Max. She’s sporting an obnoxious neon orange one piece with large, white-rimmed sunglasses. It’s an eyesore, really, but Billy keeps those comments to himself because she looks _ happy_, and one of them deserves that. He doesn’t pull his gaze from where she’s shoving water into Lucas’ face to the two standing over him. Not acknowledging that they exist counts as winning half the battle, at least.

  
“At least we know he isn’t possessed,” Dustin concedes and then he yowls as Will sucker punches him in the shoulder with a surprising amount of strength. “What’s _ that _ for?” He whines it out like nails on a goddamn chalkboard, but Will’s look shuts him up in a way that would be terrifying if it wasn’t so impressive.

  
Mike, on the other hand, is immediately lifted up off his feet. He makes this sound between a cornered chihuahua and a hissing cat before he’s swept out and dropped into the quarry. Billy finally lifts his eyes and he isn’t surprised to see El--Jane--standing with her hands on her hips, sunglasses on, lips pursed and head cocked. Her nose isn’t bleeding, which is a good sign, and she’s on the path of gaining her powers back. She knows him in a way that no one else does, that no one else probably ever will. 

  
That’s why Billy assumes she doesn’t look at him. She knows how uncomfortable he is to begin with, so she walks by him with an easy _ hey, Billy_, and runs into the water. There isn’t the expectations that he’ll answer, but there is an understanding between them that goes deeper than words can ever go. Still, the nakedness and vulnerability of it forces him to shrink into his hoodie. He tugs the hood further over his messy, unstyled curls, frizzy enough that it should be shameful. If he gave a damn.

  
“You could just knock one of them into the water,” Steve offers and Billy nearly jumps out of his skin. He hisses, instead, a sharp breath that leaves him feeling just as naked as Jane does. “I wouldn’t mind, honestly. They could use being brought down a peg or two.” Steve flaps out a garish yellow and blue towel that could be a blanket with how big it is. He sets down a container of something pink and flops down behind it. “You’re gonna get mud on your jeans,” he points out and Billy closes his eyes. Just Steve’s presence has his heart skipping in his chest and his skin tingling. It shouldn’t. He doesn’t _ deserve _ to feel like that, not after what he did, but Steve seems oblivious to how Billy feels about _ anything _ because personal space doesn’t exist with him.

  
Case in point. Steve grabs his hoodie and pulls. It isn’t necessarily a yank, but it’s enough that Billy shuffles with it, until he’s also sitting on the ugly ass towel. His eyes dart to the water, but the kids aren’t watching. Even if they were, did it matter? Would Neil even beat him into the ground if he heard? He’s already broken, and no one wants broken things, so maybe. _ Maybe_.

  
“You should probably have some before the heathens get to it,” Steve reaches over and pops the lid off of the container. It had looked pink before, but now it’s bright red with black seeds and soaking in its own juices. “They go nuts over watermelon. You a watermelon type? You kinda make me think strawberries, but I didn’t have any.”

  
Billy’s cheeks pink just about as much as one of the pieces of fruit in the container and he grunts in response. But his mouth waters and his fingers itch. Normally, his appetite is about as eager as his willingness to sleep. Steve’s offer of food has his stomach grumbling, though, so he reaches out and takes a piece. He can’t see Steve’s expression through the side of his hood, but their shoulders bump. He eats a piece of watermelon, enjoying the crispness of it, the sinking of his teeth, the sweetness. 

  
After eating a few pieces, Billy finally hazards a glance over at Steve. He has to turn his head to do so, but Steve’s eyes catch his and the smile on his face is brilliant, like he’s won something. Billy’s cheeks feel as if they singe with his embarrassment, but he knocks their shoulders together in return.

  
“You’re welcome,” Steve muses.

  
And despite how anxious Billy is, they don’t part from their place on the towel and the kids don’t say anything about it when they scramble out to consume what’s left of the watermelon.

  


**iv.**

  
The next time Billy sees Steve, it’s because Steve nearly runs him over with his car. 

  
It wouldn’t be the first time Steve’s hit him with a car Billy thinks with distant amusement as Steve rolls to a stop and drops the passenger side window.

  
“You could wear _ anything _ but black and not get run over,” Steve points out. He seems torn between exasperated and concerned with a twist of his lips and a crease between his eyebrows. It’s a cute expression on him. Billy digs his hands deeper into the hoodie pocket and rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “Seriously! Get in the car, asshole.”

  
Billy never thought _ asshole _ could be an endearment but there it is. He pops the door open and sinks into the passenger seat of the BMW. When he looks at the clock, it blinks 3:35am. He shifts and drops his head back against the headrest. Steve pulls away from the dirt and begins to drive.

  
“Can’t sleep?” Steve asks, maybe five minutes later. Billy blinks his eyes open and huffs. “Me, either. I know it’s stupid, logically? Like, it’s closed. But it was closed before, and then, you know.” Billy does know. He knows intimately well and his temples throb with it, the taste and scent of death too familiar for comfort. “I guess I can put down attempted vehicular manslaughter of one Billy Hargrove under my _ done _ list.” 

_  
How do you even know those words? _ Billy feels like a prick immediately after thinking that, but Steve doesn’t seem like the type. Maybe that’s Billy’s problem. He’s always assuming shit, and Steve keeps proving him wrong.

  
Eventually, the car slows and Steve pulls into a parking lot that has seen better days. The wheels dip through potholes and crunch over broken glass--what Billy assumes are beer bottles. When Steve finally parks, his headlights illuminate an old, forgotten basketball court.

  
“Ready to have your ass handed to you?” Steve makes it sound like a question, but it isn’t. He looks at Billy with a wolfish grin and it seeps into his bones, warms him to the core. “I think I can take you on now, y’know? Better than before.”

_  
‘Cause I’m beat to shit, you fucker_. Yet, Billy grins and climbs out of the car after Steve. The trunk lid pops open and Steve digs around until he finds a basketball.

  
“Gonna let a has been beat you?” Steve challenges as he clicks the lid shut and walks toward the court. Billy follows a few steps behind, eyes on Steve’s back, pulse thumping hard in his throat. As soon as Steve’s feet touch the blacktop of the court, he twists and drops the ball, dribbles it, grins at Billy in the light of his headlights. 

  
Steve was never a ‘_has been’ _ for Billy. Not when he first rolled up to Hawkins High, not when he knocked him over during practice, and not even when Steve t-boned his Camaro. Of course, he doesn’t say that. He watches Steve dribble the ball, walking backwards until he’s close enough to make a three point shot. If there had been net on the hoop, it would have made the satisfying _ woosh _ noise when the ball made it through.

  
Billy can’t help the way his body tenses and bolts, how easily he slides back into grabbing the ball from Steve and shooting it from where they both are. It makes it through and Billy exhales hard, elated, and everything seemed to fall into the background for him: the monsters, the Mind Flayer, the death, the guilt, the loneliness. It leaves him feeling light on his feet, quick to grab the ball and quicker to guard the basket from Steve’s attempted throws. They go back and forth for what feels like hours, until Steve’s hair sticks to his forehead and his neck and Billy is grabbing and fluttering his hoodie in an attempt to get air through it between throws.

  
Eventually, Steve taps out and flops down over the grass hugging the blacktop. Billy holds the ball underneath his arm as he pants and watches Steve flail around on the grass until he finds what looks like a comfortable position. At this point, Billy’s side hurts. His left thigh is on fire. He can feel the kind of ache that’s going to take him over and cripple him for a couple of days, but it’s a shadow in comparison to the buzzing in his bones.

  
Light begins to spill over them, a greeting from the sun, and only then does Billy trot over and flip Steve’s headlights off and drop the ball back into the car trunk. When he returns, Steve is still in that same position. He doesn’t need to tug on Billy this time. He eases down next to Steve and then lies back carefully, until his head is pillowed against Steve’s side.

  
Billy doesn’t realize his hood is down until Steve’s hand is in his curls. He wants to object because he’s sweaty and gross, but that means talking, and that might ruin whatever this is. His mouth _ always _ ruins everything, so he closes his eyes and revels in the way that Steve’s fingers feel as they comb and untangle and gently tug on his curls.

  
At some point, Billy falls asleep and doesn’t dream.

  
**v.**  
  
  
“-and like, I’m _ glad _ everyone’s _ moms _ aren’t all over you, but that doesn’t mean you should look like a bum or a homeless guy,” Max is saying because she’s always saying something, spewing some shit, and all Billy can do is follow and wish she had smaller vocal chords. “Because you have for the past _ two months_. Straight up.”

  
Billy snorts. 

  
“And I know you won’t go to a salon,” Max continues as she all but drags him from the arcade, where he thought they had been going to, to a little beat up four door sedan, “Robin has agreed to making you look human again.” 

  
“Hey, dingus numero dos,” Robin pops her gum and holds up two fingers. “Get in. I’m gonna fix you up. Don’t worry. You’ll definitely owe me one. Just not right now.” She pats the passenger seat.

  
“_Go_,” Max is kind enough to rip the door open and shove him forward. He shoots her a look but eases down onto the seat and shoves his hands into the hoodie’s front pocket. Robin waits until Max is inside the arcade to start the car and pull away.

  
“So,” Robin begins and Billy doesn’t want to talk or have a therapy session or, god forbid, _ beauty _ lessons. “You and Steve, huh?”

  
Billy freezes. His skin prickles and his lungs feel too big for his rib cage and yet not big enough that he can actually breathe. He begins to fidget with his ring, twisting it left and right. If only his hoodie could just swallow him up, eat him whole, make him _ invisible_\--

  
“Dude, calm down,” Robin sounds like she wants to touch him, but if she does, he might tear the door open and throw himself out of the car, driving or not. “I’m just _ saying _ . It’s kind of obvious, you know, to another--” she waves her hand and points at herself, “you _ know_.”

  
Billy hazards a look in her general direction while still trying to breathe.

  
“Gay,” Robin shrugs and Billy opens his mouth, closes it, looks out the window. His brain is exploding, he’s pretty sure. “Anyway. One gay cannot let another gay go around with that,” she points at his curls hidden below his hood. “So, we’re going to fix it. And don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.” She shoots him a toothy smile, but it doesn’t ease the rabbiting of his heart.

  
When they get to what he assumes is Robin’s house, she leads him inside and proceeds to do a whole _ thing _ to him. She doesn’t make him take off his hoodie, but she does use the hood as a neck rest while he sits back against the sink. She talks about terrible movies, about Steve’s terrible taste in movies, about the scoreboard she keeps and how hilarious it is to watch Steve try to act suave when he’s just a giant fucking dork.

  
By the end of it all, Billy’s smiling a little and remembering why he had taken such pretentious care of his curls in the first place. Robin used a couple of products he isn’t familiar with and there’s a weird shine to them, a thickness he isn’t used to anymore. The frizz is gone and he can’t help but stare at himself in the mirror for the first time in more than a month while Robin picks at curls and places them where she thinks they fit best.

  
“And if I see you put your hood up after we did all of this work,” Robin starts, an honest to god threat, Billy thinks, “I will _ hurt _ you. I didn’t get you ready for you to ruin it.”

  
Billy blinks and glances up in the mirror to almost meet Robin’s eyes. She’s grinning, a coy, manipulative little thing.

  
“I didn’t tell you, did I? Steve is going to be here in a couple of minutes for milkshakes. You’re going to go with him. I, unfortunately, have to cancel.” She sighs, like she’s absolutely put upon, and that’s when Billy realizes that this all was a _ trap_.

  
A well laid out, gay as hell, trap.

  
The doorbell chimes and Robin’s grin is back as she squeezes his shoulders. Billy’s stomach is doing all sorts of somersaults as she ushers him up and down the small flight of stairs. His brain feels like a train that has derailed and the people are his brain cells--deceased in a flurry of fire and smoke and panic. But Robin frog marches him to the door and swings it open.

  
“Dingus!”

  
“Ro--_Billy_\--?” Steve blinks at the two of them and then he stares at Billy, like they hadn’t seen each other the night before, or the night before that. “Your hair--” he starts and Billy’s panic is a crescendo of bees swarming in his head, fire licking his skin. He isn’t sure if he prefers that over the distant, gutted misery he’s been experiencing since the Mind Flayer sucked itself out of him. The squeeze to his shoulder from Robin brings him back to Steve, whose cheeks are pink and eyes are big, lips parted like he’s stuck on whatever words are in his throat.

_  
Welcome to my world _ Billy thinks, half-frantic and ready to bolt.

  
“I got called in for a shift,” Robin explains as she gently ushers Billy forward into Steve’s space, “so I got a replacement for you. You’re _ welcome_.”

  
“Uh,” Steve’s eyes flicker from him to Robin, “did you--”

  
“Put life back into his hair? Duh. What does it _ look _ like?” Billy can hear her rolling her eyes at Steve. “I had to get him ready for your all’s _ date_, you know.”

  
“Date?” Steve squawks it out like a duck that’s been stepped on. Billy isn’t sure if his or Steve’s cheeks can get any darker in color.

  
“Boys are _ so _ dumb,” Robin pushes Billy out the rest of the way and wiggles her fingers, “have fun and _ be nice _ to each other.” The click of the door shutting behind Billy is all too final as he stares at Steve, who is scuffing his shoe on the ground and scratching the back of his neck.

  
“Am I that obvious?” Steve mutters and Billy watches as he searches the concrete for answers. Tentatively, Billy reaches out and slips a couple of fingers into Steve’s front pocket. As soon as Steve looks up from the ground, he leans forward and brushes a light, almost barely there kiss across Steve’s cheek. Steve’s breath hitches in the sweetest way and Billy can feel the warmth of Steve's hand over his side, through his hoodie.

  
“So, is that a yes?” Steve asks, his voice quiet, private, just between them. Billy blinks twice, a _ what _ that Steve has grown accustomed to. “You’ll, ah--” Steve laughs and his hand shifts from Billy’s side to the small of his back. He pulls Billy forward the last couple of inches so they’re breathing each other’s air. “You wanna go on a date with me?”

  
The Mind Flayer had done a lot of things to Billy. It ripped his mind apart. It threw his memories at him, over and over, drowned him in his own guilt and anger and self-loathing. Showered him in abandonment and seemed giddy about everyone’s lack of concern about his behavior, about him missing. An abandoned, broken thing that isn’t worth looking for or seeing. Something that should be thrown away.

  
But the way Steve looks at him makes him feel less like he needs to be thrown away and more like his pieces are slowly being put back together. He never thought that something that was broken could be better once it was taped or glued back together, but here he is, in Steve’s arms, sharing his air, both of them wide-eyed and seemingly overwhelmed.

  
“Yeah,” Billy murmurs, finally, his voice hoarse from disuse, “_yes_.”

  
The look of utter adoration and excitement on Steve’s face is breathtaking. Billy tries to look away but Steve catches his cheeks and presses their foreheads together. Their noses bump and Billy’s smile almost ruins the kiss that Steve presses to his mouth. It’s soft and sweet and slow, a promise of what’s to come, and then Steve is leading him from Robin’s doorstep to his BMW.

**Author's Note:**

> "There is a swelling storm  
And I'm caught up in the middle of it all  
And it takes control  
Of the person that I thought I was  
The boy I used to know  
But there, is a light  
In the dark, and I feel its warmth  
In my hands, and my heart  
Why can't I hold on?  
It comes and goes in waves  
It always does, it always does  
We watch as our young hearts fade  
Into the flood, into the flood  
The freedom, of falling  
A feeling I thought was set in stone  
It slips through, my fingers  
I'm trying hard to let go  
It comes and goes in waves  
It comes and goes in waves  
And carries us away  
Through the wind  
Down to the place we used to lay when we were kids  
Memories, of a stolen place  
Caught in the silence  
An echo lost in space  
It comes and goes in waves  
It always does, it always does  
We watch…"  
-Waves by Dean Lewis


End file.
